Whether we like it or not, the Taliban will either have a role in shaping Afghanistan's future, or in destroying it

Reuters

A
six-hour attack on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, which ended early
this morning, has shaken one of Afghanistan's few remaining places
largely seen as still safe from terrorism. Nine suicide bombers killed
at least 21 people, including nine Afghan civilians and one Spaniard
civilian. As with a March 2010 attack in Kabul, the incident underscores the reach
of insurgents as well as the inability -- and, perhaps in some cases,
the unwillingness -- of security forces to hold them back. But it also
calls into question who in Afghanistan has, to borrow a word often used
by U.S. military leaders, momentum.

Over the past six or so months, as it's becomeincreasinglyclear
that the U.S. plans to leave Afghanistan by negotiating an exit with
the Taliban, rather than by seeking total military victory over it, U.S.
officials have maintained both on and off the record that our strategy
is to continue fighting to force the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Though we can't defeat the Taliban completely, they argue, we can make
things more difficult for the group, pressuring them to accept a more
favorable peace deal. But yesterday's attack raises the question, who is
pressuring whom? Are we holding the Taliban to the fire, or are they
holding us?

It's still not clear which insurgent group was behind
the attack. Most reports say the group responsible is not yet known.
ABC News' Nick Schifrin reports on Twitter that, according to an "international official," the attackers were with the Haqqani network, a particularly brutal
group that is distinct from the Taliban, though both share similar
goals and base their leadership in neighboring Pakistan. Whoever it was,
they have once again exposed the inability of Afghan national security
forces to protect against insurgents. The Atlantic Wire's Uri Friedman explains:

We
mentioned below that the Intercontinental was fortified, but we didn't
realize how fortified. Check out this description from The Christian Science Monitor:
"The approach up the hotel's long driveway involves zigzagging around
concrete barriers, then stopping midway up. Usually, passengers exit the
vehicle while police do a sweep of it and pat down the passengers. At
the hotel entrance, another security check is done that involves x-ray
scanners and a full patdown." What's more, roadblocks and checkpoints
are usually set up in Kabul in the evening, making a nighttime attack
that much harder. So what does all this mean? Either the attackers had
inside help, as Andrea Mitchell suggests below, or, as The Guardian writes, the attack is an embarrassment for the "Afghan government as it prepares to take responsibility for security."

Whether
the insurgents had help from security forces or simply worked around
them, the most significant point remains the same. As long as the
insurgents and the national government are at odds, attacks like this
will continue. The U.S. has tried to solve the problem by strengthening
Afghan security forces and weakening the Taliban, but this appears to be
a losing battle. A negotiated peace deal between the Afghan government
and the insurgents seems to be the only remaining option; rather than
separating security forces from Taliban, such a deal would attempt to
bridge their differences. This would likely require the extremely
distasteful concession of allowing the Taliban a role in the government,
something President Obama hinted at in his recent speech on the Afghan
war.

Giving the Taliban a role in Afghanistan's leadership would
not be an easy thing for the Afghan government, which has paid dearly
for its years-long war against the insurgents, or for the U.S., which
worries that the group maintains ties to al-Qaeda and still looks too
similar to the group that sheltered Osama bin Laden before and after
September 11, 2001. But, as the attacks yesterday and in so many days
before demonstrate, whether we like it or not, the Taliban will either
have a role in shaping Afghanistan's future, or in destroying it. Which
it takes is up to us.

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